If you have not yet watched the movie The Sound of Freedom, I encourage you to do so. It is one of the best-filmed, best-scripted and best-acted faith-based movies to hit theaters in many years.
It follows the true story of Tim Ballard, a federal agent tasked with breaking up child-trafficking operations in the United States. He eventually quit his job to set up Operation Undercover Railroad to rescue children around the world and capture people who exploit them. The captivating story leaves people in stunned silence at the end of the film.
The movie also notes that the United States is the world’s No. 1 consumer of child pornography and child sex slaves, as well as one of the leading producers of that material. It’s a hideous crime and we should be thankful for men like Ballard who can consistently view images of the worst possible abuse of children, and still have any capacity in their hearts to love others.
While Sound of Freedom has been a great conversation starter about the child-sex trade, the discussion has completely overlooked a very important fact. Children themselves are producing all types of pornography and sharing it with others via cell phone and social media platforms.
The problem is so prevalent that statistics show the likelihood an adolescent male has viewed pornography before his 16th birthday is almost 100%. For females, it is closer to 60%.
To combat the problem, clueless parents who often lack technical savvy to operate their own devices, try to shield their children from harmful material and predatory adults by installing internet filters and similar tools. Yet, the crud is freely shared by minors who use easily-concealable thumb drives to get around parent-installed tools.
Trust me, the average 6th grade boy knows more about techniques to hide digital images and conceal their viewing history than 95% of parents ever will.
Which brings me to a very ugly reality. Children and teenagers are creating demand which invites their own exploitation. Thinking they are sharing sexually-explicit images with other people their age, the youngsters do not realize the photos and videos are being captured, stored and shared with people around the world.
What’s worse is that kids are starting porn addictions with child pornography.
In my book, “Pornocide: How Lust is Killing Your Faith, Stealing Your Joy and Destroying Your Life,” one of the characters describes the slippery slope of pornography.
In the past, it started with men looking at non-nude images, such as women modeling swimsuits and underwear. Hello Sports Illustrated? Soon viewers graduate to softcore pornography, such as photos of topless or fully-nude females.
From there, people start consuming hardcore images of women fondling themselves, then having intercourse with men. But, after a while, that gets boring for porn addicts. So they search out videos of women engaged in that behavior.
Soon, even that loses its luster, as addicts require more graphic videos depicting rape. Next comes child pornography and, eventually, images of women in bondage who are beaten and even killed in what’s called “snuff” videos.
In the past, child pornography was near the bottom of the slippery slope. Today, children are starting their addictions by viewing softcore and hardcore videos of other kids engaged in sexual activity either by themselves or with others.
Unfortunately, people do not fall UP the slippery slope.
That means, where are we headed as a society when technology-addicted children are creating, storing and sharing their own sexually-explicit material?
